US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile • Hacker News Board

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#251

Post by derrickdirge » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 1:15 PM UTC

kahnpro wrote: post #239

OJFord wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Canada also requires your password at the border. Recently one guy even faced 1 year in prison for refusing. That can't be true; at least, there must be a hell of a lot more to it. Why would Canada want to pay provide prison space for a foreign national who's committed such mundane a crime as non-cooperation, and without ill-affect on any Canadian citizens?

If you're a foreigner, Canada will just detain you and deport you. But a Canadian citizen they will arrest and charge with obstruction of their job.

Is job obstruction illegal in Canada?

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#252

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 1:15 PM UTC

b3lvedere wrote: post #180

czechdeveloper wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not US citizen. I have no one to contact and no one cares about me. And I will never travel to USA.

It's a beautiful country though. Most people are very friendly and they love foreign accents :)

It is a shame this; as a white Brit, I found that America is already great on the individual level. It's just the institutional and political side that's a mess, as well as the dark side that one doesn't see as a tourist. Unless you run into an obstreperous border guard.

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#253

Post by extra88 » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 1:16 PM UTC

WildUtah wrote: post #247

kogepathic wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone proposing clever technical solutions. Burner phones and encrypted cloud data etc... you are solving the wrong problem. Yes, and this is why I will happily pay airlines more to transfer in another country that is not America (e.g. Canada, Mexico). It sucks because it makes travel more expensive, but US airports are not traveler friendly (they could start by having international transfer zones so you don't h…

There is one flight from Latin America to east Asia. Aeromexico flies from Mexico City to Tokyo and Shanghai alternately with their 787s. (ANA is adding a NRT-MEX flight this winter also.) But there are many, many connecting flights through DFW, Houston, LAX, and SFO. The direct flight costs upwards of $500 more, often a 60% or higher premium. That's the value of avoiding transit through the USA and the visa and CIS…

> one flight from Latin America to east Asia

Are the countries on the continent of South America not generally considered a part of Latin America? Because there are other options from Santiago, Sao Paolo, Rio, etc. to Tokyo. Some of the options are on Air Canada, with a stop in Toronto which avoids U.S. airports but presumably not U.S. airspace so there may still be some additional scrutiny at departure.

You don't actually have to go all the way to a South American city, Panama City has Air Canada flights to Tokyo. It looks like the other carriers (Emirates, KLM, Turkish Airlines) have stops in a South American city first. The Air Canada flights aren't much more expensive but the European & Asian-based carriers are much more expensive than the flights with stops in the U.S.

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#254

Post by literallycancer » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 1:16 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #73

devoply wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cleaned out phone is suspicious. Are you hiding something? Nope I have nothing to hide, but I still don't have a phone on me sir. This guy in the ended up with a history. That's where his problems began, after that you are fucked no matter what you do unless you play it very very clean.

The border authority knows who you are (from your passport). They can use that information to check everything - phone records, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, your purchase history, your credit references, etc. They don't have to simply accept you don't have any devices - they already know what devices you have and what you use them for. The only thing they don't have is direct access to your actual data. That's why th…

It's not like CBP has access to the same tools NSA would use. If your profile isn't public and your name is common, they have no way to know it's really your profile. I'd expect my bank to not freely share my information with CBP (as should anyone whose bank isn't based in the US).

Of course the unsolvable issue is that the agent gets to decide whether you get in or not, instead of following some checklist. (Which means the agents' internal heuristics become the checklist.)

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#255

Post by yourapostasy » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 1:26 PM UTC

vinay427 wrote: post #211

smsm42 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless it causes a very noticeable drop in tourism - not on anecdotal level, but on the level of millions - about 70M tourists visit US yearly, so to make noticeable change, it probably should be like 10M at least - there will be no change. Note that there are literally millions of citizens who don't get a dime from tourists, don't care too much about tourists, but worry a lot about (real or imagined) threat of terro…

The difference is that just about everyone in the US actually is positively affected by tourists (tax dollars) but not affected by terrorism (very low incidence of terrorism in the US). I'm not sure where the millions of Americans who don't get a dime from tourists exist.

The US is a sufficiently large enough domestic population that it self-generates and self-fulfills most of its tourism market. I was surprised myself when I looked up how lopsided it is. Similar can probably be said of China, EU, and perhaps Africa in a couple decades.

Overseas arrivals to the US is tracked in [1].

Domestic tourism represented 96.7% of the annual market in 2013. [2]

In the context of this thread's discussion of overseas visitors avoiding the US and its knock-on effects upon the US tourism industry, if overseas visitors 100% disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn't be a rounding error, but according to these statistics it's definitely not the political-economic club it's made out to be in these discussions. For better or worse, it is up to US citizens to vote in any changes in border control service delivery standards.

For what it's worth, many of the procedures I've heard people complain about have some basis in reasoning lurking in the background. International transits (where you land in a US airport but go onwards to a different country, never once stepping foot onto non-airport soil) requiring a security re-screening is explained in some places [3]. The cost to Americans getting People's Republic of China (PRC) visas traces back to diplomatic tit-for-tat, as PRC citizens visiting the US pay similar fees. Many security industry observers admire Israel's airport security, yet discussions like this thread neglect to mention Israeli border control also demands social network and email credentials, and the US is singled out for adopting an Israeli practice, when just scant few years ago the US agencies were excoriated for being too unenlightened to adopt Israeli practices [4].

Where I see room for improvement is service delivery, and education of citizens might help, while increased focus upon anchoring the mobility of capital to mobility of labor will definitely help. I've had my share of visa issues traveling into Canada as a US citizen, but the staff were unfailingly polite while still being hard-nosed, while I hear of other US citizens getting hassled at the Canadian border. I've had minor snafus in border crossings into Mexico and the PRC as well, and I was treated politely there, too. My attitude in all of these interactions was, "Ah, sorry I made your day harder just now, what can I learn about what I missed with regards to the policy so I don't make the same mistake again, what is the rough, overall process and timeline to fix it this time around, and what is the detailed next action item (who/where/what/how)?" This has never failed to elicit the officer politely, sometimes gladly, assisting me, so maybe this helps others. YMMV, of course.

[1] http://travel.trade.gov/research/monthly/arrivals/index.asp

[2] http://www.eturbonews.com/53328/research-domestic-tourism-si...

[3] https://www.quora.com/Airports-Why-do-you-have-to-go-through...

[4] https://www.quora.com/Is-it-justifiable-for-the-Ben-Gurion-a...

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#256

Post by coldcode » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 1:27 PM UTC

Do not visit the US under any circumstances, especially now. Until our tourism companies like Disney feel the pain and start losing massive amounts of money nothing will change. You can talk to your Senators until you are blue in the face and it won't change squat. But some rich company pissed off at losing money who will not give the Senator money any more will be listened to. Money moves politicians, regular people are unlikely to.

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#257

Post by boomboomsubban » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 1:35 PM UTC

angry_octet wrote: post #234

boomboomsubban wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's undecided about Canada. There is a law that could say it's punishable by a year in prison, but the law is from thirty years ago and hasn't been tried in this situation. The CBSA says that you can be arrested for failing to divulge a password though, and for now it is their opinion that matters.

If you read the link you will see that the CBSA policy is not to attempt to arrest people for this, due to the uncertainty. https://bccla.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CBSA-FOI-Docs.p...

And if you read the link, that is from an almost two year old bulletin and begins with "until further instruction." I don't know what the exact FOI requests were, so all you can be certain of is "their policy under the Harper government was..."

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#258

Post by misingnoglic » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 1:37 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #252

b3lvedere wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a beautiful country though. Most people are very friendly and they love foreign accents :)

It is a shame this; as a white Brit, I found that America is already great on the individual level. It's just the institutional and political side that's a mess, as well as the dark side that one doesn't see as a tourist. Unless you run into an obstreperous border guard.

That's funny, that's the same thing that Americans say about Iran.

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#259

Post by kalleboo » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 1:37 PM UTC

robteix wrote: post #208

kalleboo wrote: post #77

The U.S. is the only country I've visited where immigration asked me a trick question. Not the kind of mental gymnastics you want to be doing after a 14 hour flight. I'm lucky I caught it.

I'm curious, what was the question?

"When was the last time you entered the country? And that was the time you went over the land border? "

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#260

Post by misingnoglic » Wed, Feb 22, 2017, 1:38 PM UTC

bruceb wrote: post #80

system16 wrote: post #70

After many unpleasant dealings with US Customs, I avoid flying to or through the US completely even if it costs me more. The last time I flew from Canada to Singapore through the US, the US Customs officer - on Canadian soil - was hostile, asked me numerous questions about my travel, itinerary, who I was intending to meet, and my personal finances. When I questioned if all this was necessary as I'm not even traveling…

This is part of the problem, not the questions but the attitude. I can understand them asking questions, they have a short time to figure out if the traveler might be "up to no good". That is no reason to ask questions in way that attacks a person. Ask all the questions you want just don't be terrorizing jerk about it. Now one instance can be chalked up to a bad apple but over and over again I have heard stories like…

One time I was going to Canada for a Hackathon, and I had to explain for a bus full of people what that means. Their only reply was "you do that for fun?"